The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Hardware

Transit by Wire – Automating New York’s Aging Subways

When I left New York in January, the city was in high spirits about its extensive Subway System.  After almost 50 years of construction, and almost 100 years of planning, the shiny, new Second Avenue subway line had finally been completed, bringing direct subway access to one of the few remaining underserved areas in Manhattan.  The city rallied around the achievement.  I myself stood with fellow elated riders as the first Q train pulled out of the 96th Street station for the first time; Governor Andrew Cuomo’s voice crackling over the train’a PA system assuring riders that he was not driving the train.

In a rather ironic twist of fate, the brand-new line was plagued, on its first ever trip, with an issue that has been effecting the entire subway system since its inception: the ever present subway delay.

A small group of transit workers gathered in the tunnel in front of the stalled train to investigate a stubborn signal.  The signal was seeing its first ever train, yet its red light seemed as though it had been petrified by 100 years of 24-hour operation, just like the rest of them.

Track workers examine malfunctioning signal on Second Avenue Line

When I returned to New York to participate in a summer internship at an engineering firm near Wall Street, the subway seemed to be falling apart.  Having lived in the city for almost 20 years and having dealt with the frequent subway delays on my daily commute to high school, I had no reason to believe my commute to work would be any better… or any worse.  However, I started to see things that I had never seen: stations at rush hour with no arriving trains queued on the station’s countdown clock, trains so packed in every car that not a single person was able to board, and new conductors whose sole purpose was to signal to the train engineers when it was safe to close the train doors since platforms had become too consistently crowded to reliably see down.

At first, I was convinced I was imagining all of this.  I had been living in the wide-open and sparsely populated suburbs of Massachusetts and maybe I had simply forgotten the hustle and bustle of the city.  After all, the daily ridership on the New York subway is roughly double the entire population of Massachusetts.  However, I soon learned that the New York Times had been cataloging the recent and rapid decline of the city’s subway.  In February, the Times reported a massive jump in the number of train delays per month, from 28,000 per month in 2012 up to 70,000 at the time of publication.

What on earth had happened?  Some New Yorkers have been quick to blame Mayor Bill De’Blasio  However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the entity which owns and operates the city subway, is controlled by the state and thus falls under the jurisdiction of Governor Andrew Cuomo.  However, it’s not really Mr. Cuomo’s fault either.  In fact, it’s no one person’s fault at all!  The subway has been dealt a dangerous cocktail of severe overcrowding and rapidly aging infrastructure.

 

Thinking Gears that Run the Trains

Anyone with an interest in early computer technology is undoubtedly familiar with the mechanical computer.  Before Claude Shannon invented electronic circuitry that could process information in binary, all we had to process information were large arrays of gears, springs, and some primitive analog circuits which were finely tuned to complete very specific tasks.  Some smaller mechanical computers could be found aboard fighter jets to help pilots compute projectile trajectories.  If you saw The Imitation Game last year, you may recall the large computer Alan Turing built to decode encrypted radio transmissions during the Second World War.

Interlocking machine similar to that used in the NYC subway

New York’s subway had one of these big, mechanical monsters after the turn of the century; In fact, New York still has it.  Its name is the interlocking machine and it’s job is simple: make sure two subway trains never end up in the same place at the same time.  Yes, this big, bombastic hunk of metal is all that stands between the train dispatchers and utter chaos.  Its worn metal handles are connected directly to signals, track switches, and little levers designed to trip the emergency breaks of trains that roll past red lights.

The logic followed by the interlocking machine is about as complex as engineers could make it in 1904:

  • Sections of track are divided into blocks, each with a signal and emergency break-trip at their entrance.
  • When a train enters a block, a mechanical switch is triggered and the interlocking machine switches the signal at the entrance of the block to red and activates the break-trip.
  • After the train leaves the block, the interlocking machine switches the track signal back to green and deactivates the break-trip.

Essentially a very large finite-state machine, this interlocking machine was revolutionary back at the turn of the century.  At the turn of the century, however, some things were also acting in the machine’s favor; for instance, there were only three and a half million people living in New York at the time, they were all only five feet tall, and the machine was brand new.

As time moved on, the machine aged and so did too did the society around it.  After the Second World War, we replaced the bumbling network of railroads with an even more extensive network of interstate highways.  The train signal block, occupied by only one train at a time, was replaced by a simpler mechanism: the speed limit.

However, the MTA and the New York subways have lagged behind.  The speed and frequency of train service remains limited by how many train blocks were physically built into the interlocking machines (yes, in full disclosure, there is more than one interlocking machine but they all share the same principles of operation).  This has made it extraordinarily difficult for the MTA to improve train service; all the MTA can do is maintain the again infrastructure.  The closest thing the MTA has to a system-wide software update is a lot of WD40.

 

Full-Steam Ahead

There is an exception to the constant swath of delays…two actually.  In the 1990s and then again recently, the MTA did yank the old signals and interlocking machines from two subway lines and replace them with a fully automated fleet of trains, controlled remotely by a digital computer.  In a odd twist of fate, the subway evolved straight from its Nineteenth Century roots straight to Elon Musk’s age of self-driving vehicles.

The two lines selected were easy targets, both serve large swaths of suburb in Brooklyn and Queens and both are two-track lines, meaning they have no express service.  This made the switch to automated trains easy and very effective for moving large numbers of New Yorkers.  And the switch was effective!  Of all the lines in New York, the two automated lines have seen the least reduction in on-time train service.  The big switch also had some more proactive benefits, like the addition of accurate countdown clocks in stations, a smoother train ride (especially when stopping and taking off), and the ability for train engineers to play Angry Birds during their shifts (yes, I have seen this).

The first to receive the update was the city’s, then obscure, L line.  The L is one of the only two trains to traverse the width of the Manhattan Island and is the transportation backbone for many popular neighborhoods in Brooklyn.  In recent years, these neighborhoods have seen a spike in population due, in part, to frequent and reliable train service.

L train at its terminal station in Canarsie, Brooklyn

The contrast between the automated lines and the gear-box-controlled lines is astounding.  A patron of the subway can stand on a train platform waiting for an A or C train for half an hour… or they could stand on another platform and see two L trains at once on the same stretch of track.

The C line runs the oldest trains in the system, most of them over 50 years old.

The city also elected to upgrade the 7 line; the only other line in the city to traverse the width of Manhattan and one of only two main lines to run through the center of Queens.  Work on the 7 is set to finish soon and the results looks to be promising.

Unfortunately for the rest of the city’s system, the switch to automatic train control for those two lines was not cheap and it was not quick.  In 2005, it was estimated that a system-wide transition to computer controlled trains would not be completed until 2045.  Some other cities, most notably London, made the switch to automated trains years ago.  It is though to say why New York has lagged behind, but it most likely has to do with the immense ridership of the New York system.

New York is the largest American city by population and by land area.  This makes other forms of transportation far less viable when traveling though the city.  After a the public opinion of highways in the city was ruined in the 1960s following the destruction of large swaths of the South Bronx, many of the city’s neighborhoods have been left nearly inaccessible via car.  Although New York is a very walkable city, its massive size makes commuting by foot from the suburbs to Manhattan impractical as well.  Thus the subways must run every day and for every hour of the day.  If the city wants to shut down a line to do repairs, they often cant.  Often times, line are only closed for repairs on weekends and nights for a few hours.

 

Worth the Wait?

Even though it may take years for the subway to upgrade its signals, the city has no other option.  As discussed earlier, the interlocking machine can only support so many trains on a given length of track.  On the automated lines, transponders are placed every 500 feet, supporting many more trains on the same length of track.  Trains can also be stopped instantly instead of having to travel to the next red-signaled block.  With the number of derailments and stalled trains climbing, this unique ability of the remote-controlled trains is invaluable.  Additionally, automated trains running on four-track lines with express service could re-route instantly to adjacent tracks in order to completely bypass stalled trains.  Optimization algorithms could be implemented to have a constant and dynamic flow of trains.  Trains could be controlled more precisely during acceleration and breaking to conserve power and prolong the life of the train.

For the average New Yorker, these changes would mean shorter wait times, less frequent train delays, and a smoother and more pleasant ride.  In the long term, the MTA would most likely save millions of dollars in repair costs without the clunky interlocking machine.  New Yorkers would also save entire lifetimes worth of time on their commutes.  The cost may be high, but unless the antiquated interlocking machines are put to rest, New York will be paying for it every day.

Categories
Learning Management Systems Web

Cross Platform Learning- Opinion

Last semester, my Moodle looked a little barren. Only two of my classes actually had Moodle pages. This would be okay if only 2 of my classes had websites. But all of them did. In fact, most of the classes I took had multiple websites that I was expected to check, and memorize, and be a part of throughout the semester. This is the story of how I kept up with:

  1. courses.umass.edu
  2. people.umass.edu
  3. moodle.umass.edu
  4. owl.oit.umass.edu
  5. piazza.com
  6. Flat World Learn On
  7. SimNet
  8. TopHat
  9. Investopedia
  10. Class Capture

 

The Beginning

At the beginning of the semester it was impossible to make a calendar. My syllabi (which weren’t given out in class) were difficult to find. Because I didn’t have a syllabus from which I could look at the link to the teacher’s page, I had to remember the individual links to each professor’s class. This was a total waste of my time. I couldn’t just give up either because that syllabus is where the class textbook was. I felt trapped by the learning curve of new URLs that were being slung at me. I had moments were I questioned my ability to use computers. Was I so bad that I couldn’t handle a few new websites? Has technology already left me in the past?


The Semester

One of the classes I am taking is on technology integration into various parts of your life. The class is an introductory business class with a tech focus. This class is the biggest culprit of too many websites. For homework we need website A, for class we use website B, for lab we use website C, the tests are based on the information from website D, and everything is poorly managed by website E.

Another class is completely a pen on paper note taking class. In the middle of lecture, my professor will reference something on the website and then quickly go back to dictating notes. Reflecting on it, this teaching had a method to using online resources that I enjoyed. Everything I needed to learn for the tests was given to me in class and if I didn’t understand a concept, there were in depth help on the website.

One class has updates on Moodle that just directs me toward the online OWL course. This wasn’t terrible. I am ok with classes that give me a Moodle dashboard so I have one place to start my search for homework and text books. The OWL course described also had the textbook. This was really nice. One stop shopping for one class.

My last class (I know, I am a slacker that only took 4 classes this semester) never used the online resource which meant I never got practice using it. This was a problem when I needed to use it.


The End

I got over the learning curve of the 10 websites for 4 classes I was taking. But next semester I will just have to go through the same thing. I wish that professors at UMass all had a Moodle page that would at least have the syllabus and a link to their preferred website. But they don’t do that.

Categories
Android Apps iOS Software Web

Automation with IFTTT

Image result for IFTTT

“If This, Then That”, or IFTTT, is a powerful and easy to use automation tool that can make your life easier. IFTTT is an easy way to automate tasks that could be repetitive or inconvenient. It operates on the fundamental idea of if statements from programming. Users can create “applets”, which are simply just scripts, that trigger when an event occurs. These applets can be as simple as “If I take a picture on my phone, upload it to Facebook”, or range to be much more complex. IFTTT is integrated with over 300 different channels,  including major services such as Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and many others, which makes automating your digital life incredibly easy.

Getting Started with IFTTT and Your First Applet

Getting started with IFTTT is very easy. Simply head over to the IFTTT website and sign up. After signing up, you’ll be read to start automating by creating your first applet. In this article, we will build a simple example applet to send a text message of today’s weather report every morning.

In order to create an applet, click on “My Applets” at the top of the page, and select “New Applet”.

Now you need to select a service, by selecting the “this” keyword. In our example, we want to send a text message of the weather every morning. This means that the service will be under a “weather” service like Weather Underground. Hundreds of services are connected through IFTTT, so the possibilities are almost limitless. You can create applets that are based off something happening on Facebook, or even your Android/iOS device.

Next, you need to select a trigger. Again, our sample applet is just to send a text message of the weather report to your text in the morning. This trigger is simply “Today’s weather report”. Triggers often have additional fields that need to be filled out. In this particular one, the time of the report needs to be filled out.

Next, an action service must be selected. This is the “that” part of IFTTT. Our example applet is going to send a text message, so the action service is going to fall under the SMS category.

Like triggers, there are hundreds of action services that can be be used in your applets. In this particular action, you can customize the text message using variables called “ingredients”.

Ingredients are simply variables provided by the trigger service. In this example, since we chose Weather Underground as the trigger service, then we are able to customize our text message using weather related variables provided by Weather Underground such as temperature or condition.

After creating an action, you simply need to review your applet. In this case, we’ve just created an applet that will send a text message about the weather every day. If you’re satisfied with what it does, you can hit finish and IFTTT will trigger your applet whenever the trigger event occurs. Even from this simple applet, it is easy to see that the possibilities of automation are limitless!

Categories
Hardware

Water Damage: How to prevent it, and what to do if it happens

Getting your tech wet is often one of the most common things that people tend to worry about when it comes to their devices. Rightfully so; water damage is often excluded from manufacturer warranties, can permanently ruin technology under the right circumstances, and is one of the easiest things to do to a device without realizing it.

What if I told you that water, in general, is one of the easiest and least-likely things to ruin your device, if reacted to properly?

Don’t get me wrong; water damage is no laughing matter. It’s the second most common reason that tech ends up kicking the bucket, the most common being drops (but not for the reason you might think). While water can quite easily ruin a device within minutes, most, if not all of its harm can be prevented if one follows the proper steps when a device does end up getting wet.

My goal with this article is to highlight why water damage isn’t as bad as it sounds, and most importantly, how to react properly when your shiny new device ends up the victim to either a spill… or an unfortunate swan dive into a toilet.

_________________

Water is, in its purest form, is pretty awful at conducting electricity. However, because most of the water that we encounter on a daily basis is chock-full of dissolved ions, it’s conductive enough to cause serious damage to technology if not addressed properly.

If left alone, the conductive ions in the water will bridge together several points on your device, potentially allowing for harmful bursts of electricity to be sent places which would result in the death of your device.

While that does sound bad, here’s one thing about water damage that you need to understand: you can effectively submerge a turned-off device in water, and as long as you fully dry the whole thing before turning it on again, there’s almost no chance that the water will cause any serious harm.

Image result for underwater computer

You need to react fast, but right. The worst thing you can do to your device once it gets wet is try to turn it on or ‘see if it still works’. The very moment that a significant amount of water gets on your device, your first instinct should be to fully power off the device, and once it’s off, disconnect the battery if it features a removable one.

As long as the device is off, it’s very unlikely that the water will be able to do anything significant, even less so if you unplug the battery. The amount of time you have to turn off your device before the water does any real damage is, honestly, complete luck. It depends on where the water seeps in, how conductive it was, and how the electricity short circuited itself if a short did occur. Remember, short circuits are not innately harmful, it’s just a matter of what ends up getting shocked.

Once your device is off, your best chance for success is to be as thorough as you possibly can when drying it. Dry any visible water off the device, and try to let it sit out in front of a fan or something similar for at least 24 hours (though please don’t put it near a heater).

Rice is also great at drying your devices, especially smaller ones. Simply submerge the device in (unseasoned!) rice, and leave it again for at least 24 hours before attempting to power it on. Since rice is so great at absorbing liquids, it helps to pull out as much water as possible.

Image result for phone in rice

If the device in question is a laptop or desktop computer, bringing it down to us at the IT User Services Help Center in Lederle A109 is an important option to consider. We can take the computer back into the repair center and take it apart, making sure that everything is as dry as possible so we can see if it’s still functional. If the water did end up killing something in the device, we can also hopefully replace whatever component ended up getting fried.

Overall, there are three main points to be taken from this article:

Number one, spills are not death sentences for technology. As long as you follow the right procedures, making sure to immediately power off the device and not attempt to turn it back on until it’s thoroughly dried, it’s highly likely that a spill won’t result in any damage at all.

Number two is that, when it comes to water damage, speed is your best friend. The single biggest thing to keep in mind is that, the faster you get the device turned off and the battery disconnected, the faster it will be safe from short circuiting itself.

Lastly, and a step that many of us forget about when it comes to stuff like this; take your time. A powered off device that was submerged in water has an really good chance at being usable again, but that chance goes out the window if you try to turn it on too early. I’d suggest that for smartphones and tablets, at the very least, they should get a thorough air drying followed by at least 24 hours in rice. For laptops and desktops, however, your best bet is to either open it up yourself, or bring it down the Help Center so we can open it up and make sure it’s thoroughly dry. You have all the time in the world to dry it off, so don’t ruin your shot at fixing it by testing it too early.

I hope this article has helped you understand why not to be afraid of spills, and what to do if one happens. By following the procedures I outlined above, and with a little bit of luck, it’s very likely that any waterlogged device you end up with could survive it’s unfortunate dip.

Good luck!